Caught in the Middle: Congressional Moderates in a Polarized Era

• In Event: Negotiating Agreement in Congress: Exploring Tools and Incentives

Abstract

Abstract: Although voting records suggest a sharp decline in congressional moderates in recent decades, media attention to moderates does not appear to have followed suit. From 1981-1989, the terms “moderate Republican” or “moderate Democrat” appeared in the New York Times alongside “Congress” or “House” or “Senate” a total of 744 times. By 2001-2009, that number had grown to 1,118 stories. Instead of becoming forgotten players in a more polarized Congress, then, attention to moderates appears to have increased as their numbers have declined. This paper tracks media attention to moderate legislators since the 1980s to develop a better understanding of how the media defines political moderation and frames stories about congressional moderates. I then conduct a survey experiment in which respondents are exposed to prototypical newspaper stories about moderate legislators along with stories about more traditionally liberal or conservative (or partisan) legislators. The survey experiment sheds light on how voters respond to information about different types of legislative behavior and the conditions under which voters reward or punish moderate legislators in our more polarized era.

Author

• Logan Dancey, Wesleyan University